


spider witch

by Quillium



Series: spideytorch week 2k19 [7]
Category: Fantastic Four, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Pre-Relationship, Secret Identity, Witch AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-07-25 01:31:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20024335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quillium/pseuds/Quillium
Summary: “I didn’t mean it like that,” he says, “I just—I think you’re really cool.”“Because I’m legally dubious?” Spider-man scoffs and summons his broom, “This was nice, Torch, but I’m off.”





	spider witch

**Author's Note:**

> Was going to do something cool for free day but my default seems to be witch au so. Yeah.

“What are you doing in this area, Torch?” Spider-man asks lightly, leaning against his containment field as Johnny lands his broom, “Thought the Four worked on more—high scale threats.”

“Can’t a witch take a fly?” Johnny asks in what he hopes is a cool voice. He had his earrings spelled for calmness and took a smooth-talking mint this morning and everything but he’s still not sure if that properly does anything to hide the nervousness that comes at having a major crush on a guy who’s way out of his league for ten million reasons. “Was in the sky and dropped to say hi.”

A small laugh. Maybe at the pun. Does Spider-man like puns? Oh god. Johnny needs to google puns. He needed to google them, like, _yesterday_.

Wait. Hold up.

Spider-man is a grown man and Johnny is not supposed to be crushing on him.

(He’s crushing. So hard. Super duper hard. So—okay. Step away. Breathe. Don’t let on that you’re a spaz in front of your twenty-something witch celebrity(?) crush.)

“Hi,” Spider-man says flatly.

Oh god.

He’s not going to tell Johnny to go home, is he?

Johnny has enough of that, being a teenage witch.

“Yes,” Johnny prays to every deity that he doesn’t stutter, “Because you’re a witch. And I’m a witch. And uh—we have the same jobs. Containing magical threats. And that’s cool. Even though you work as a freelancer. Which is legally dubious. And don’t show anyone your face. Or reveal your power source. Or—“

 _Stop talking stop talking stop talking_.

He can see it when Spider-man shuts down. Sees the way his shoulders go stiff like he’s gearing up for a fight, sees it when Spider-man snaps his fingers and the containment field vanishes in the teleportation spell Spider-man always uses to send his baddies to the magical cops.

Hears it in Spider-man’s cool, “Well, you’ve seen me. Go back to your fly, now.”

He phrases it like a control spell but Johnny doesn’t feel any control. Just sinking shame and desperation in his gut.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he says, “I just—I think you’re really cool.”

“Because I’m legally dubious?” Spider-man scoffs and summons his broom, “This was nice, Torch, but I’m off.”

“That wasn’t—“

Johnny sighs as Spider-man takes to the sky. Yeah, alright. He deserved that.

__

Things are tense after that.

They weren’t tense before, but that was mostly because Johnny Storm only existed in the periphery of Spider-man’s vision—he didn’t care until Johnny went and said all those bad things about him and now Spider-man will hate him forever and Johnny still has that dumb crush on a guy he doesn’t even know.

It’s tense up until a few months later when there’s a shadow creature and Johnny helps Spider-man take care of it.

“Thanks,” Spider-man mumbles as he contains it, instead of the usual snappish _I had that_ or _was that light show really necessary?_ that Johnny usually gets when he interferes in another witch’s fight.

“No problem,” Johnny says, and tries not to show his surprise, “Um, about insulting you—“

“I know, you’re sorry. Not like you’ve said that a billion times or anything.”

“Oh. Uh. Are you mad? I mean, it’s fine if you are. Totally valid. It’s just—“

“It’s fine,” Spider-man flicks his wrist and dismisses the shadow creature, “Not the worst start I got off to. I crashed into Iron Man’s living room, that’s how I met him.”

Johnny grins a bit, “Bet that was a right mess.”

“Yeah. He tried to take over the fight but it didn’t end well.”

“Didn’t end well for _Iron Man_? An _Avenger_?”

“It was a unique situation,” Spider-man laughs a bit, “My point is—don’t worry about it. You don’t have to be such a mess and worry about me—I dunno—trapping you in one of my containment spells or anything.”

“I wasn’t—“ Johnny bounces a bit on his feet, trying to let out some nervous energy, “I—I really admire your magic. That’s why I was so—so dumb.”

“My magic?”

“Yeah.”

 _“Mine_.”

“Yeah.”

“… _Why_?”

“It’s cool. None of it looks like any spell from any textbook I’ve ever read. It all looks really raw and unique, like you just pulled your spells out of thin air.”

Spider-man laughs a bit. It sounds strange, but Johnny figures that’s because he hasn’t really met an admirer who knows magic well like this.

“I, uh, didn’t spend too much time with formal studies. Didn’t feel like I really needed it at the time.”

“Whoa, that’s amazing.”

Spider-man shrugs, “But you’re really formal. The entire Fantastic Four—it’s really formal stuff. Avengers are sort of an in between—part formal, part advancement and unique stuff. But your stuff is just—it’s like you all have a PhD in magic. I admire that.”

“I can teach you some stuff,” Johnny says, a bit too eagerly.

Oh god.

He’s going to scare Spider-man off, isn’t he?

To his relief, Spider-man only hums a bit and then nods jerkily, “That sounds cool. You really fine with that?”

“Yes,” Johnny bounces, “Definitely.”

__

“You know,” Spider-man says somewhere around their tenth meeting, not that Johnny’s obsessively keeping track or anything, “When I talked about you having a PhD in magic, I was joking.”

“I don’t have an official PhD or anything,” Johnny wrinkles his nose, “I just hang around with a bunch of nerds and things sort of stuck after being lectured since I was six.”

A quiet laugh as Spider-man thumbs through the textbook, trying out basics with a sense of something like wonder each time.

Johnny’s starting to learn more about Spider-man. He’s kinda dumb. Likes bad puns. (All puns are bad, but it’s alright, Johnny also loves them.) And he always approaches magic with this sense of wonder that nobody else Johnny’s met does, like it’s something marvellous and new every time.

And it’s terrible, because Spider-man’s becoming like a friend and Johnny knows he’s probably like a decade older, but Johnny really likes him.

He doesn’t even care about making out or anything, he just want a certainty of a future where he can listen to Spider-man ramble and make bad jokes and maybe talk about magic theory over crepes.

He has it _bad_.

“Why did you choose fire magic?” Spider-man asks on one rooftop session.

Johnny shrugs and holds up a hand. Watches the flame flicker and dance between his fingers, pulsing golden just underneath his skin. “It just felt right,” he says, “Why did you choose—what, containment spells?”

“It was convenient,” Spider-man says, almost embarrassed, “It just—fit the job.”

“Alright, alright. Why _Spider-man_? You don’t seem to have any spider related spells.”

“I, um,” Spider-man mumbles something.

“Sorry, I didn’t hear.”

“I—my power source is spiders, okay?”

“What the fuck.”

“I know! It freaks me out, too! I mean, even Ant-man gets his powers from, like, particles and stuff. I can, like, detect spiders and stuff, too, and it’s so freaky. Sometimes I can channel spidery abilities like super strength and I just want to cry.”

“What the _fuck_ ,” Johnny repeats, “That’s pretty cool, man.”

“No, no, it’s not! It’s scary as fuck!”

“Is not! Hey, can you see if there are any spiders in the tower so I can, like, bring them outside?”

“Forget releasing them, just kill ‘em. They scare me so much. _So much_.”

Johnny really, _really_ likes Spider-man.

__

Fall of eleventh grade, Sue forces Johnny to join the Potions club. Like Johnny needs it. But Sue insists on it for extracurricular’s sake, so Johnny does it.

He’s paired with _Gwen Stacy, nice to meet you_ as an intro because the club is (thankfully) laisse faire, and soon finds the club’s actually pretty cool. It’s small and informal and everyone’s a giant fucking nerd who’s unashamed of it.

“Hey, Gwen,” Parker, _call me Peter_ , leans over the table, “Where did you put the web jar?”

“Used it for an experiment,” Gwen answers lightly, “Why, you finally got the guts to look at spiders?”

“I hate you,” Parker says, “Know that, if nothing else.”

He speaks like a controller, but Gwen just laughs and says, “You know you love me.”

Parker grumbles and wanders off. A few minutes later he screams and dashes to Gwen’s side, “Kill them, kill them, _kill them_ —“

“They’re just spiders.”

Parker buries his face in Gwen’s shoulder, “I hate them.”

“You hate your own people?”

“Stop.”

“Your own _species_?”

“Gwen, I’m begging you—“

“Hey, Ned, do you mind bringing over Mr. Tarantula sometime because Peter wants to conquer his fear and—“

Parker moans, “I am willing to sacrifice all my magic if I could just destroy every spider in the world.”

“Baby,” Gwen snorts and grins at Johnny.

“You’re scared of spiders?” Johnny asks.

“I hate them,” Parker mumbles.

“You literally draw power from them.”

“Shut up, Gwen.”

They banter some more, but Johnny’s stuck on that one point. He watches Parker as he shakes his head and squints suspiciously at the spiders and uses something that looks suspiciously like a containment teleport bubble to clean up his potion’s station and—

No way. No way.

Could he be...?

**Author's Note:**

> Had a lot of fun this week. Very grateful for the opportunity. This was nice. Will... probably be working on TimKon week tomorrow. Today? It's early. Late? Anyways... hope you had a fun time, take care of yourselves, you know the drill.


End file.
